A SHORT YEAR AND A MERRY ONE
As memory carries me back to 1891, it seems as if it would have
been impossible to crowd into a period of twelve months more social
pleasures and jolly good times than we had in that year.
In the social life at Knollwood we had ceased to be active. We
kept up and enjoyed our intimate friendship, now of more than ten
years' duration, with our immediate neighbors; but the personnel
of the Park had changed in recent years and with many of the new
residents we were not congenial, though on pleasant terms with all.
There was still a good deal of dining, card parties, and entertainments
at the Casino, in which we participated, but it was with our New
York friends that most of our social life was passed. The circle
there had been enlarged by the addition of many pleasant people,
although the close intimacy still rested where it had started,
with, however, the addition of Mr. and Mrs. William Viedler.
Mr. Viedler, a multi-millionaire at that time, has since largely
increased his fortune and is now the controlling interest in a
prominent trust of comparatively recent formation. They had been
Brooklynites but bought a fine house on Fifth Avenue.
We first met them on the occasion of a dinner given in their honor
by Mr. and Mrs. Curtice, to welcome them to New York. Mr. Curtice
is a nephew of Mrs. Viedler.
The Caines, although intimate, were not of the inner circle. This
comprised Mr. and Mrs. Curtice, Mr. and Mrs. Todd, Mr. and Mrs.
Banford, Mr. and Mrs. Viedler, and ourselves. Curtice was our
poet laureate, and in a song he composed and sang at a dinner were
included these lines:
"Thus from the crowd that gathered then
Has sprung to fame the immortal ten,
And Stowe has been so generous since
That all the crowd have dubbed him Prince."
After that event all our friends referred to the little circle as
the "Immortal Ten;" my wife was called Lady Stowe, and I, by right
of song, Prince.
It is very difficult to say what we did not do that year in the
way of pleasure-seeking, but it is an easy matter to name the chief
event.
As guests of Mr. Viedler a party of eighteen went camping in the
Maine woods. In every detail the trip was a perfect success. Private
car to Moosehead Lake, a banquet fit for Lucullus, prepared by his
own chef, en route, exquisite Tiffany menus, and costly souvenirs.
Headquarters at Mt. Kineo for a day or two, and then down the West
Branch of the Penobscot in canoes, and over the carries until the
comfortable camp at Cauquomgomoc Lake was reached. Deer, moose,
partridge, and trout were in abundance. Every minute of that
delightful outing was filled with pleasure.
Early in the fall we decided to try a winter in New York. The "San
Remo," at Seventy-fourth Street and Central Park, West, had just
been completed, and I rented three connecting apartments, which gave
us parlor, library, dining-room, five bedrooms, and three baths,
all outside rooms. I also rented in Sixty-seventh Street a stable,
and on the first of October we took possession.
We were more than pleased With the life in town, and I commenced
negotiations with Dore Lyon for the purchase of a handsome house
he owned at West End Avenue and Seventy-fifth Street. Just as the
trade was about to be closed my eldest daughter was attacked with
typhoid. She became very ill, and this so alarmed us we concluded
to return to "Redstone" in the spring and remain there.
When the holidays drew near the invalid was convalescent, and we
opened "Redstone" for a house party. When we returned to New York
it was with a feeling of regret.
Business had been good throughout the year. My profits were nearly
eighty thousand dollars.